Tag: poems in 2026

Magic Just the Same

The robin ahead on the trail
dappled in sunlight
looks to me like a gnome,
and I pause,
remembering
the time a gnome
came to me in a tent
while my family slept,
and I want to believe
for just a moment
that somewhere
in this wicked world
there’s still magic like that —
still gnomes
and fairies,
still hope
and things we can believe in —
then just like that,
the robin flies off
deep into the woods
of this last protected space,
and I think
it’s magic just the same.

BUY THE BOOK NOW!

Tags Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, nature poems, poems about magic, poems in 2026, poems in difficult times

Creativity Poetry

The Robin’s Nest

At night,
while we dream
I climb up and into
the flowering tree
to tuck in the fledglings
before they tumble,
sing soft lullabies
while the Mom sleeps,
caution them
stay east of the hedge
and if they must
fly high and up
no matter the bee-line
temptations,
watch the rain
and the wind
and the random cat
and I, my darlings,
will watch you
like a prayer.

BUY THE BOOK NOW!

Tags Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, poems in 2026, poems in difficult times

Creativity Poetry

From the Commuter Train Window, 2026

Post author By Jen Payne
Post date May 11, 2026
No Comments on From the Commuter Train Window, 2026

Someone’s pitched a tent
in the cemetery

a silent living,
I suppose,

except the train
that runs
the end points
of the line between

and silence
oh silence
is a 5-star amenity
in wicked days

when moss pillows
and rainwater cocktails
harken to simpler times

Indian-style on granite
housekeeping
under honeysuckle boughs

full of hope and envy
for a grown-up life
from which we’ll run,
someday

make camp with ghosts
who offer quiet comfort
and sometimes,
on special days,
flowers

BUY THE BOOK NOW!

Tags Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, poems in 2026, poems in difficult times

Creativity Poetry

Lincoln, NH (May 2026)

Tonight, by the quarter moon,
I will visit the Pemigewasset
lie down my tired bones
let notch waters churn
run the course of my body
pin me to the smooth roundness
upon which I rest
until neither of us notice
the stranger’s stillness
how all that seemed out of place
once was, once wanted
is no longer anything
but this river flowing.

BUY THE BOOK NOW!

Tags Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, poems in 2026, poems in difficult times

Creativity Poetry

If you decide…

The hitchhiker
heading south on 3
towards Woodstock
represents, to my mind now,
a sort of Choose Your Own Adventure

If you decide to keep driving, turn to page six
If you decide to pick him up, turn to page nine

If you decide to keep driving…The End or maybe
If you decide to pick him up…The End

If you decide to throw caution to the wind, page nine
If you decide to roll the dice, let fate do the work, let freakin’ Jesus take the wheel

go to page nine

If you roll down the window
If you ask him: Where are you going?
If you let him in…

If he smiles angelically
If he pulls out a gun
If he asks where you’re going
                  Where the fuck are you going?

go to page nine

At least you get to see what comes next
you will know where you are going

page nine
                  or page six

Does it matter anymore?

If you keep driving
If you get in an accident
If you stop for lunch
If you pick him up

If it turns out he knew your high school boyfriend in a past life*
                  *true story

If you run over him
If you drive off a bridge
If you kill him
If he kills you
If you fall in love
If you write a poem…

If you decide to keep driving, turn to page six
If you decide to pick him up, turn to page nine

BUY THE BOOK NOW!

Tags Choose Your Adventure, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, poems about New Hampshire, poems in 2026, poems in difficult times, turning 60

Creativity Poetry

In Vain

The moon said Get Up!
And while the cat
and cardinal
insisted I had some purpose
for the day,
I was not convinced.

I AM not convinced.

This slow and useless
plodding on floorboards
that hold now nearly
30 years of footsteps
seems circuitous.

I can, of course,
enumerate —
if you were to ask —
point out the notches
and plaques,
consider the possible
one heart, one life, one pain
but those are slow to come
at 4 when the soft known comfort
of sheets and dreams
seems the best I can hope for
these days, when even footsteps
have become formidable.

BUY THE BOOK NOW!

Tags #NaPoWriMo, Connecticut Poet, Emily Dickinson, Jen Payne, napowrimo.net, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, poems in 2026, poems in difficult times, turning 60

Creativity Poetry

April Fool

I wake up with a start
realize that I am, myself,
the April fool
still thinking I have control
(or hope)
of making it out alive
all these years
swimming against a tide
tilting at windmills
chasing wild geese
pushing boulders up hills
when in reality
I am just the monster
at the end of the book
silly old
silly, old me

BUY THE BOOK NOW!

Tags #NaPoWriMo, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, napowrimo.net, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, poems in 2026, poems in difficult times, turning 60

Creativity Poetry

To Get to the Other Side

One coyote howl
wakes us at 4
and we both,
the cat and I,
move around
blankets
and curtains
hoping to see
the creature
cross the road
ask each other why?
and for what purpose?
laugh at our inside joke
before falling back into dreams
neither one of us can translate —
coyotes and gunman,
snap traps and mice,
the violent world outside.

BUY THE BOOK NOW!

Tags #NaPoWriMo, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, napowrimo.net, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, poems in 2026, poems in difficult times

Creativity Poetry

Can I sail through the changin’ ocean tides?

Post author By Jen Payne
Post date April 1, 2026
No Comments on Can I sail through the changin’ ocean tides?

I’m dreaming about the man in the field
its autumn backdrop oddly out of place
with the spring cacophony
that filters through my nighttime window;
he’s talking about collective trauma —
the seeping-in of our wild world
on jet streams and ethernets
on brainwaves and internets —
a scrolling litany of the everything
we were not built to absorb
and the everything against which
we are powerless;
a continental, monumental shift
beneath our feet
in a landslide brought me down
epic crescendo sort of way
I’m sure Stevie never imagined.

BUY THE BOOK NOW!

Tags #NaPoWriMo, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, napowrimo.net, National Poetry Month, National Poetry Writing Month, poems in 2026, poems in difficult times

Creativity Poetry

The wheel is come full circle

Post author By Jen Payne
Post date March 29, 2026
No Comments on The wheel is come full circle

It is No Kings in March
and a one-man King Lear
opines from a makeshift stage
in a Union building
on the bank of a river;
he is boisterous
and profound,
a shapeshifter
come to teach us
again
about the failings
of ego and power
here in this space
that smells of
picket signs and
hard-won fights,
placards of victory
line the walls
while outside,
the wind has changed
as bodies are counted
to move the scale of battle more.

BUY THE BOOK NOW!

Tags Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, King Lear, No Kings, poems in 2026, poems in difficult times, poems while wintering

Creativity Poetry

The Futile Pursuit of Hope

Post author By Jen Payne
Post date March 26, 2026
No Comments on The Futile Pursuit of Hope

I can’t keep throwing books out
just because I’ve lost patience with words,
even the ones meant to console
my wintering spirit;
there is little consolation these days
where hope is a burden of expectations
I want to stab violently with a fork
that instead finds its way into another
slice of cake I keep hidden beneath my bed,
its sweet, sweet comfort
savored between the puzzle of dreams
that have so many layers,
and so many meanings,
one might think I was fucking Jung,
a rabid affair that keeps me trapped
in this godforsaken space
analyzing and processing
analyzing and processing
analyzing and processing
still here again always…
a bonfire stack of books by the door
my Plan B should the promises keep failing.

BUY THE BOOK NOW!

Tags Carl Jung, Connecticut Poet, Jen Payne, Memory, poems after surgery, poems in 2026, poems in difficult times, poems while wintering

Creativity Poetry

Broken Record

John Lennon sang about peace
when I was only 5
but then he was shot in the back
four times, a few years later
imagine.
we all kept singing though
even after that
gave the peace sign to each other
in a wink-wink someday sort of way
like we were in on a big secret;
it was coming, any day now,
2,000 years of peacemakers
and peace preachers
had told us so
before they were killed, too,
point-blank or otherwise;
told us, told our parents,
told their parents who
kissed in the streets
when John Lennon was all but 5
imagine.
and so it goes,
peace dream
pipe dream
pish posh.